Breastfeeding rooms hidden in health care law
Edited to add: Despite the fact that I deep-linked to the full comment, and even added ellipses to point out the my deliberate omission, tgirsch still thinks I misquoted him. I’m leaving the post intact below the following two dashes, but I encourage you to follow my original link to read the whole comment.
Then tgirsch goes on to say, well, just damn! Read the comment below, because I don’t want to risk misquoting again.
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“Hidden” is the exact language used by CNN in this story.
While I may not be adamantly opposed to this, it’s still another tax on employers which will get passed on to consumers or paid out of possible salaries of people who don’t lactate. I’m sure no one factored that into the cost of the bill before it was introduced.
My real objection is the fact that we never got to read, discuss, or debate the behemoth before it was deemed as passed.
Back when we had a whole 72 hours to decode such standard mischief as :
…tgirsch let a little truth out. Earlier I had said something to the effect that the more people learn about the bill, the more that people of all stripes dislike it. He countered that reality was the exact other way around. Then he dropped this whopper:
You really and truly think the way to build broad support for a complex piece of legislation is to let people read it?…
Wow, just fucking wow.
tgirsch Says :
Once again, context is important. And conservative/libertarian types hate context. What I actually said, in context, was:
The point is that rank-and-file Americans aren’t going to learn about what’s in the bill by reading the bill. Indeed, they aren’t even qualified to do so, which is true for complicated bills in particular. Laws are written by and for lawyers, not average Joes. Instead, they’ll do what you just did: pick up on news stories about what’s in the bill, which in turn are likely prodded by various special-interest groups.
But if you want to disingenuously spin what I said into “the public is a bunch of drooling morons,” go right ahead, I guess. I prefer honest debate, but we can’t always have what we want, now can we?
2010-04-12 12:04 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
I’ve updated the top of the post with a disclaimer.
I’m again floored by what you said in your latest comment. Not by the fact that you think I deliberately twisted what you said, but the fact that you’re willing to admit that the laws are not understandable by ordinary human beings. I assume you still think that they still apply to ordinary human beings?
Are you OK with fining someone, or even worse, marking them as a felon for the rest of their lives for breaking a law (Malum prohibitum) secreted inside a deliberate, massively obfuscated bill which is so complex that you need two days and two lawyers to understand it?
You do know that people have been found not guilty when a law is occasionally found “unconstitutionally vague”, right?
For the record, I feel that you build broad based support for the law by not drafting a complex piece of legislation, by not holding it close to your chest during the debate phase, by making the bill easy to see inline with the official US code, and by not deeming a bill passed because the voters have spoken and you just don’t have the votes for closure of debate in the Senate any longer.
2010-04-12 22:16 PermalinkLinoge Says :
Good idea – in light of your original post, Tgirsch’s comment is damned near high-larious… and it perfectly illustrates the “oh, do not worry your pretty little head about it” mentality that is so pervasive, and so very annoying, throughout the not-really-”liberals” of our time.
As for the bill, in the end, I am not really sure which will take longer – actually figuring out what all it will be affecting, and how all of its various parts, portions, and pieces affect pre-existing laws; or recovering from the nightmare it is going to create.
In other news, so much for that “allow five days for the public to review the bill online” promise, eh?
2010-04-12 22:27 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
You’re not actually going to hold the “empty gesture” President to one of his empty gestures, are you? Even if it stupidly easy for him to honor it?
In tgirsch’s defense, he did agree with my proposal to hash every bill and amendment the moment it was introduced and publish both the full text and the hash online instantly.
I proposed fixing Thomas.gov first, before trying to “fix” health care.
2010-04-12 22:43 Permalinktgirsch Says :
SM:
That really doesn’t seem like a particularly controversial observation to me. We live in a complex society. The devil, as they say, is in the details.
There have been plenty of plain-language summations of what’s in the bill, so that the average layperson can understand it (though, to the media’s eternal discredit, they didn’t bother to publish any of these until AFTER the bill passed). But in order to have something that passes legal and constitutional muster, and is robust enough to stand up, you’re going to HAVE to have lots of legalese. It’s naive to the point of absurdity to expect otherwise.
I mean, I suppose if you want to go back to a simplistic society of sticks and stones, we could have laws that are accessible to everyone. But modern society is just too complex for that.
As to my comment and your citation of it, my objection was and is that you deleted important context. You appeared, to me at least, to be making me out to say “people are too stupid to read the bill” or something along those lines.
But even taking your single-sentence citation at face value, you still haven’t actually answered that question.
Medicare and social security are both HUGELY popular with the general public. Do you think that’s because they read the text of the laws authorizing them, and said “Gee, that sounds like a great idea!” or because they’ve actually seen the laws in action and like the benefits they provide? My money’s on the latter.
2010-04-13 23:54 Permalinktgirsch Says :
Linoge:
Too bad I never argued that you shouldn’t worry your little head about what’s in the bill. What I’m arguing is that personally reading the bill is not the way to find that out. Unless you’re a trained lawyer and can cut through the legalese, you’re simply not qualified to do so. And that’s not just true for legislation, by the way. It’s also true for things like mortgage contracts.
The truth is, we outsource that kind of work all the time, to people who are qualified to do it. Why should we expect legislation to be any different?
There are plenty of interest groups, doubtless some that share your political perspective, that have the resources to have the lawyers pore over the thing and figure it all out. Assuming you trust them, you’re far better off getting their take on it than trying to decipher the legal hieroglyphics yourself.
2010-04-13 23:59 Permalinktgirsch Says :
Linoge:
The house passed the Senate bill on March 21. It was the same bill, verbatim, that the Senate had passed in December. And as soon as that passed, it was put on-line. So it had been on line for almost three full months. Last I checked, three months is more than five days.
On the reconciliation bill, though, you’re right: he only waited four days after the final bill passed before he signed it. Bad on him.
2010-04-14 00:04 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Sorry to take so long to get back to you, tgirsch.
OK, so shorter tgirsch: “we live in a complex world, so having these complex bills is unavoidable” (not an actual quote)
shorter SM: “they deliberately made the bill complex, they kept it out of the public eye until 72 hours before the ‘deeming’, they failed to provide copy showing the changes in-line with US code, even though they most certainly had it in-house, and they structured the law such that they would get the budget numbers they needed.”
I don’t think there’s anything to be added to the debate.
2010-04-19 05:41 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
tgirsch Said:
On the reconciliation bill, though, you’re right: he only waited four days after the final bill passed before he signed it. Bad on him.
It would have cost him nothing to keep this promise, instead he pretends those words were never spoken.
I think that blowing off a promise this easy to keep offers a window on the content of his character.
2010-04-19 05:46 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Medicare and social security are both HUGELY popular with the general public. Do you think that’s because they read the text of the laws authorizing them, and said “Gee, that sounds like a great idea!†or because they’ve actually seen the laws in action and like the benefits they provide? My money’s on the latter.
Since Social Security turned the corner this year, you managed to use two laws with combined tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded mandates as examples.
Maybe they’re hugely popular because they manage to bribe voters with money that will need to be extracted from people who largely can’t vote or haven’t been born yet? Talk about your taxation without representation.
2010-04-19 05:53 Permalink